Here and Between
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: In the spaces where the only music they breathe are the spells they cast. Oneshot series. Harry x Luna.
1. One Word In

_One Word In_

One fine morning, Luna comes across Ginny Weasley's diary, picks it up, then drops it immediately as if it had bitten her. She is still in a little awe of the rumors floating about. The ones where Ginny was supposed to have been kidnapped by the malicious sprite calling itself Slytherin's Heir, rescued by a knight in shining robes whom everyone knew as 'that Potter boy' and then flown out of her prison on the dappled red wings of a phoenix. According to the grapevine anyway.

Luna can never be too sure about the whispers. Most of the ones relating to her did catch her fancy sometimes. Like that curious one about her and Professor Snape's missing Potions ingredients. Apparently, boomslang skin was just the thing for hallucinations. Causing them, that is. Regardless, she has drawn an easy peace with the resident gossips. They can do the talking while she will affirm and reaffirm the sniggering masses of their incomplete fallacies. Whether she is to be believed or not is not entirely up to her alone.

* * *

On the second morning and second poke, the book remains innocently still. Curiosity, and something fluttery that she can't quite comprehend, settles nicely into Luna over her breakfast of gruel and toast. She has found that a sparse meal and half-empty stomach does wonders for the soul, so hungry is it for a distraction that foot-long essays and cramming for tests are only lesser hurdles to jump in the long run.

Surprisingly, Ginny does not seem to be missing anything. Then again, she shouldn't be, not after learning how steep betrayal could run for the price of a written confession. Words are one of the few things that Luna feels completely content with so she flips through Ginny's new and danger-free diary, the mournful rumblings emanating from her half-full belly falling to a soft faraway pitch. Many entries go unread entirely, Quidditch and a house overrun with brothers being the least of Luna's bothers.

Certain words spring out at her. 'Valentine's', 'Harry Potter', 'blush', 'so embarrassing', the last of which is underlined three times, the ink of each stroke smudging darker as they descend. Running the tips of her fingers over them, Luna notes how high the words seem to rise over the paper. Like yeast in the oven, she concurs. Like when the temperature inside reaches a certain level that the bread and cakes _must_ ascend because they have had all they can take and can't hold it in anymore.

This need to 'hold it in', to repress, to suppress emotion that flows naturally makes Luna's thoughts wander out to the halls and rooms where the whispers cover everything up like a winter fog. It's easy to get lost since you can barely see through the filmy screens of half-truths that engulf the castle on the best of days. Perhaps it is through this fog that Ginny wishes to be seen. Ginny wants to be found and she wants to be hidden as well. Luna secretly wishes her the best of luck since her mother once likened redheads to steaming pots. Bound to explode one day, sooner or later.

Luna likes the irony in her unsaid words. 'Later' may as well be 'too late' for 'later'. Wouldn't it be wiser to explode now and ignore the mess? The irony that sprouts within these thoughts surprises her for all of three seconds and then she nods her head in agreement. She is not sure whether she should feel angry at herself for being a hypocrite or pleased at her intelligence for uncovering the fact. Maybe she could talk it over with Granger once she got out of the hospital wing. Which would be the best course of action? Silence or secrecy?

She plays out the conversation in her head ten times, each one with different questions leading to limited possibilities. Granger is Ginny's friend after all and hence the one true pairing of her choice clashes with Luna's insipid yearning. So Little Miss Lovegood sits on her throne of upturned buckets in her court of brooms and mops, the Storeroom for Stowaways, and contemplates not unhappily a possible lifetime spent in yearning for the Prince of Ginny's Purple Prose.

It must have been a while since breakfast. Who knows? Perhaps it is night outside over the forest and she has missed lunch and dinner altogether during her prosaic travels through the diary on her lap. It lies open and vulnerable to a pair of light-colored eyes reflecting not a speck of the darkness that surrounds their owner. Luna sees words buzzing about her head, never landing on the paper for fear of squeezing out a secret or two from within the pages. There are a couple she'd like to pick out and plunk before Potter like 'hello' and 'tell me'. It would be so easy were it not for them winging it as soon as she grabs a hold of them.

Yeah, maybe she does quite like him. A bit.

She summons the same words and plops them down before the make-believe forms of many of the varying gents of Hogwarts. Somehow, it's never much the same. Colin's too excitable, Zabini not so much at all, Oliver Wood being too far out in the clouds to catch and Cedric Diggory too unreachable for her grasp. She tries again and again but none of them do fit the words forming to sentences.

She thinks of jet black and emerald green, the smallest splashes of each which shouldn't excite her so but they do all the same. Wanderlust taking over, she draws him a new smile, one that breaks open to reveal crooked white teeth and offsets the zigzag scar. At this point, Luna thinks she's gone too far indeed and shuts the diary close.

* * *

She puts it back later on, right on the desk Ginny sits at in Charms.

Words buzz through her head in class, each compelling her to write them down on the table's wooden surface.

She rubs them off immediately.

There is a half-smile on her face, hinting at the greeting that will one day fall from her lips.


	2. Things Unspeakable

_Things Unspeakable_

Ever since Cho, Harry's not sure he wants to give the 'couple' thing another try. Sneaky little love-notes stuffed in his boots after Quidditch practice is bad enough, but girls in tears?

No. No.

Unless she's crying over onions in a stew. Or a particularly adroit comment passed by Professor Snape.

Even then, Harry's often too caught up in unwinding his own confuddled teenage complexities to particularly want any more drama than he's called for. _Witch Weekly_ had already done their fair share of harm. The last gossip item on their itinerary had been the 'steamy snog session' involving a certain Ginevra Molly Weasley of Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon. Molly Weasley had come a hair's breadth from an apoplexy on reading the news and Harry had wanted little else but to shrivel into bed, dead as a Diricawl.

Dead as can be, in the midst of yet another Slugfest which just happened to commence with a speech peppered with a litany of anecdotes. All of which had his name attached to the latest spiel of rumor fresh from the mill.

"But of course, a great mind and capable hands alone are what it takes to make one's way in today's familial-obsessed world," Horace Slughorn peered intently at a spot above the rim of his glass, making Harry wonder if the man had just hit upon the twist of irony in his words. "Then again, no telling what good constitutes a pair of hands as 'experienced' as young Harry's are to be believed, am I right?"

Harry bit down the urge to drive his head into the tablecloth in shame. A ripple of tittering broke out over the tea-cake stands, though Hermione empathized with a careless shake of her head. Ginny's absence at tonight's party went mostly unnoticed.

"… So to conclude an old man's tattle, let us feast."

It was indeed the end, thankfully. Slughorn took to latching onto Melinda Bobbin, who had chosen the unfortunate seat to his left, and began a thorough drilling on octopus powder (a discount, if anyone could wager a guess). Exhaling softly, Harry reached out for the plate of cucumber sandwiches. Hermione took a sip of the watered-down nettle wine that had been served especially for the occasion.

"Quite a month you've been having, Harry."

"It's not like I need reminding."

The _Witch Weekly_ spread loomed in his head. He almost choked at the sight of some familiar orange shapes in the salad bowl.

"Radish salad?" Hermione lifted a serving spoon from it by way of offering. Harry shook his head.

He'd often found himself wishing for a clearer moment. There was a thing about fame and magic that often made allusions out of illusions and perhaps even the other way around if he thought more. Sometimes he told himself that it was too much to dwell on. Lessons, homework, exams, Quidditch and destiny had already staked their claim on his peace. He didn't have time for anything more.

He didn't _want_ time for anything more.

Sometimes telling himself that failed.

It whittled down to those moments when his heart and stomach worked in tandem, overlooking his head. He wasn't a closed book that wanted prizing open but he did need opening up. He wanted a good pair of ears to be listened to, not any eyes that only saw what they expected: scars and skin, Boy Who Lives under the darkest of shadows. Was a bit of light too much to ask for?

The annoying little worm inside him sneered and for once, he felt like agreeing. Yes, he was being overdramatic. He'd survived worse, let alone just another media blitz. Slytherin taunts aside, he had his dignity intact. Most of it. He didn't like thinking what Ginny made of this particular disaster but he could be proven wrong. She was made of stronger stuff (as he _did_ like to think). Maybe, for once, it was only his head doing the talking and not another heartworn hunch.

After all, it did explain the flutter in his chest at the first sight of dull gold in the candlelight – just the silverware reflected, he soon found. Or the glitter of the lake beneath the ebbing late afternoon sun. It was only when he found himself wondering how the water would gleam under the moonlight glow that he did realize something.

"Harry? Is that butter you're trying to put in your tea?"

He fell back to now, the party, the dim-lit dining-room, Hermione's nudging him with a look of concern. Nobody else seemed to have noticed that he also had the milk-jug poised over a forkful of crumpet.

"Harry, do you feel well? You aren't ill, are you? Is it the…"

He brushed a hand over his forehead. "No."

It had become one of those things that went unspoken between him and _her_. It would lie in wait, hovering in the air as he spoke about nothing in particular while she listened to everything he couldn't quite comprehend. When he knew no one was looking, he thought of it and dubbed it 'the mist'. Nothing about it scared him, except having to turn around the next moment and find that she had disappeared into thin air like most of anything he held dear.

By not inviting her this time, he could build a bridge through the mist; just enough to take either one of them out of it. If he looked at it from a distance, it seemed better that they each move on to their own ends before it hurt that much to _have_ to. In time, they might fall to surname acquaintances and far-off nods in the hallways. Someone else would (hopefully) follow in his trail and believe in her fairytales.

Because if he knew better now, there was nothing he could regret about those lost hours near the lake-shore, waiting for the moon to appear and listening to the sounds of real magic.

In the end, it's only the dull ache of past wounds that has him sitting still in his place, wishing he could go back to their beginning.


End file.
